


Plain and Fierce

by orphan_account



Category: Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 23:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There was something plain and fierce about those shapes, predecessor and offspring...





	Plain and Fierce

**Author's Note:**

> Some headcanons may have been mentioned over discord. Thanks to my buddy boi who helped name the gurlz, you know who you are bby!
> 
> ; )

Tom and Becky. Happily ever after, as one would say.  
The child nuzzled into the slumbery warmth of her mother's chest. Their shapes coinciding were like miracles, relaxed and snuggled, but strong too. Like warriors. There was something plain and fierce about those shapes, predecessor and offspring. Almost as fierce as the staring look Tom had had as a boy, even when he wasn't staring. It was the sort of face that knew everything, although it's owner wasn't very wise at times. Fatherhood had brought a sort of kindness to his features.  
Becky acknowledged her consort.

For a start they were going on a journey, somewhere special and different. Quite unlike home. The younger little girl, Jane, was playing a game, imagining places. Fast country roads, branches exploring the sky. To pass the time, they would dine with pixies and banshee's - ones that weren't mean that is. Build a castle with ominous marble pillars, where a society of teddy bear boys and girls existed. Jane wore an ordinary yellow dress with a white shrouded collar, but it made her feel noisy and proud. She had 6 other dresses which she called her beauties. They were ordinary too, although in her mind they were like birds of paradise.

While Tom and Becky were catching up in the parlour about their upcoming plans, Jane went exploring up the still, steep hill behind their house. It was the east wind that came biting and hissing in the browned old needless of the latch trees, but there were leaves now, like tiny shaving brushes, the brightest green of all, and anyway, she was being called now.

"Jane!"  
No answer.

"Jane!"  
No answer.

"O please, Jane?"

"Still no answer." Muttered Betty.

She didn't think she liked her sister much, but then thought at times that she must be kind, caring for her safety and what not. Betty was a mousy and reserved girl, much like Great-Aunt-Polly had been. Different from Jane  There was a pinch of dirty straw stuck in her braid, and her head was flaunced backwards behind her shoulders, her eyes following her sister up a rock with dire concern.

Up at the top there was wind blowing like fragrance and it was cool, though still sunny and the whole hill skiddery with the shadows of clouds. It was a substantial walk up the hill. For a little girl like Jane, she found she had to climb her way mostly.  
Betty panicked and time became numberless.

  
"JUST YOU WAIT! YOU'RE A SILLY GIRL JANE! I'M TELLING MAMA!"  
And she did what she said she would do. And when she did, she came running, pouring, whaling into the blankets of her Mother's house-wear gown. Little green tomatoes had been put along the hot kitchen window sill all in a row to ripen, but one had rolled off in the midst of the flurry. Her freckles were celestial and spread across both of her cheeks, they now were drowning. All because of her silly little sister, reckless and wild, Like a goat. Becky peated over at Tom, beckoning him to give her a solution, but he began to shake his head with composed irony.

"Mama, Jane's going to die! She gotten' up Cardiff hill! She's clumsy, which means she's about ta tumble down any moment now! You gotta save her Mama, please!"

Becky planted a moonbeam kiss on her forehead, and then reasured her with a, "So?"  
She stops suddenly, caught by the clarity of an after migraine moment, the ice clean cleverness the visionaries must have known. She began to speak in whispers, even though they were in complete privacy besides Tom.  
"Betty," she said, "how old is your little sister? Hmm?"

"Eight."

Mother and daughter, embrace one another's focus for a moment. Betty's skin begins to drink away the tears. The woman's expression sent her a silent message, but this was not yet read or understood. It was kept in her heart for later in life.  
"You go and join her now, make sure you catch her before she tumbles."  
She had then swept away, out of her Mother's story and into her own. Her white tights begin to dampen with the dew of the grass as she runs back to Cardiff hill. Yellow light Starks the little town. Betty inhales it into the twin trees of her lungs. It sweeps away a prevailing mood of fear.

 


End file.
